Book Description
American Mourning is the story of two American families whose sons died in the war on terror. Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson had been best friends since they first met at Fort Hood in Texas; they were killed within five days of each other in separate ambushes in Sadr City, Iraq, during Holy Week of 2004.
As the Sheehan and Johnson families have mourned their unimaginable loss, they have had little else in common and have taken entirely different paths as they mourned. Justin's father, Joe Johnson, followed his son to Baghdad, slogging through the open sewers of Iraqi slums to see where Justin had died and to avenge his death.
Cindy Sheehan wanted another kind of revenge. Blaming President Bush for Casey's death, she called the Muslim radicals who killer her son "freedom fighters" and brought an entourage of antiwar activists and a coalition of the willing press to the president's ranch outside Crawford, Texas. Demanding that the president meet with her in the sweltering Texas summer, she became a media phenomenon and America's best-known antiwar activist since Jane Fonda.
The Sheehans and the Johnsons represent the extremes of grief-stricken parents in war, both families reflecting the gap in how Americans view the war on terror. The Johnson family has bonded closer. Justin's parents have grown nearer; their faith has been strengthened; and their support for the war is stronger than ever. Meanwhile, the Sheehan family has fractured, and Casey's parents have divorced. Cindy says she is no longer a Christian, and her opposition to the war is deeper an dmore bitter than ever.
The bodies of Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson lie in their hometown graves. Justin's final resting place is decorated with handmade flags and miniature Uncle Sams. Casey's had no marker for two years to tell the world that he lived, fought, and died a hero.
Both Joe and Cindy are shooting at ghosts. Cindy still is. This is their story. The story of American Mourning.
Customer Reviews:
Loss and hatred on opposite paths.......2007-03-22
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views (2/07)
Justin Johnson was raised in Georgia where boys are taught how to use a gun from an early age. Justin enlisted after 9/11. "Mom, things aren't good. It's scary. You wouldn't believe this place. It's messing with our heads. Mom, you just never know. There are kids, ten- to-twelve year-olds and they got machine guns. You don't know: are they friendly or are they the enemy."
Casey Sheehan was raised in California. Casey's mother discouraged her son from enlisting in the army. He was loyal and loved his country. She offered to take him to Canada so that he could avoid Iraq, but he declined.
Casey and Justin met at Fort Hood, Texas. The two became quick friends although they didn't have a lot in common. "Both were quiet, strong, patriotic, and God-loving young men." "Both young men prayed to God and hoped they would make it home to their moms and dads, sisters and brothers."
Justin and Casey were both killed by radical Muslims.
Joe Johnson wanted revenge on the terrorists. He signed up with a unit shipping to Iraq and "swore to God and to Justin that I would go to Iraq and kill as many of them as I could." Joe was filled with hatred. "I could kill all the insurgents and it would never bring Justin back, I don't think I'll really get anything out of it except for maybe that one moment of satisfaction when I finally kill somebody. But as far as long-lasting feelings of satisfaction, I don't think I'll find it in Iraq. There's hardly a day goes by that I don't wish I hadn't a spent more time with him."
Cindy Sheehan was also filled with hatred but she took it a different direction. "She blamed President George W. Bush for Casey's death and called the Muslim radicals who killed Casey and Just "freedom fighters." "Cindy posted herself outside the president's Crawford ranch. She became a media phenomenon, thanks to a campaign by well-paid media experts from the Left." Her grief and the media destroyed her family.
"A parent should never have to bury a child."
Catherine Moy & Melanie Morgan expressively share the tragic story of two young men killed in Iraq, two families torn apart. Moy and Morgan capture and convey the pain and anguish the families are suffering. I found myself in tears as I read this book. The bravery of Justin and Casey is celebrated on these pages. I want to be careful not to state an opinion of the actions of the families for I would not add to their pain. After reading this book, the deaths become more than a news story. This book gives Justin and Casey a face and brings them into you heart. This book describes the divide in American opinion concerning the War on Terror. Regardless of which side of the divide you stand we must never forget the young men and women who are fighting this war. Ms Moy and Morgan are to be commended on their presentation of the heroic lives of these two young men. I highly recommend "America Mourning" to all.
Unfair to both sides.......2007-03-02
This book is one of the saddest pieces of "journalism" I have ever read. It is a smear job on both families. Not just Sheehan, but the ridiculous amount of personal stuff thrown out there on the Jackson's makes the reader wonder: What does any of this have to do with argument? All in all, a book that appears to be profiting from the death of two brave men. I am thoroughly appalled by the words and tactics of the authors. I am apolitical, so maybe I didn't enter this book with the frame of mind necessary to feel good about the dragging through the mud of two brave and decent soldiers families. Is this what they fought and died for? Flat ridiculous.
American Mourning was a great book.......2007-01-10
I mostly read just Stephen King books, but this book was one that I had heard about and decided to purchase. I was very glad to read about one family that cared so much for their son that his father enlisted to avenge his son's death. Unfortunatly, reading about Cindy Sheehan only wanted me to get a gun and shoot her. She did nothing but lie and kept her family from mourning their son's death. I really enjoyed this book.
American Mourning.......2007-01-10
If the authores would of just stuck with the story it would of been a 5 star for me. It had too many political judgements but all in all it was a good story. I heard they are thinking of making a movie out of this book. That I would like to see but I hope they focus more on the Soldiers and not so much on the politics.
A picture of the real heart of Americans........2007-01-10
A 'must read' for those who are only hearing the anti-America retoric of the liberal minority. There are still Americans who are proud of what our country still stands for. GP
Amazon.com
"We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong--and we were right. I regret nothing!" So spoke Abbie Hoffman, recalling the '60s 20 years later. Anderson memorializes Hoffman's words, along with quotations from rock lyrics, SDS slogans, and official pronouncements from the likes of Spiro Agnew, Richard Daley, and George Wallace. He tracks the boomer generation's progress from the civil rights and free speech movements to, after the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, what approached civil war. He does so with passion, arguing that the kids were right to protest a national policy that enriched Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist and war criminal, while imprisoning conscientious objectors for refusing to fight in Vietnam. Anderson's masterful treatment brings those difficult times to life.
Book Description
It began in 1960 with the Greensboro sit-ins. By 1973, when a few Native Americans rebelled at Wounded Knee and the U.S. Army came home from Vietnam, it was over. In between came Freedom Rides, Port Huron, the Mississippi Summer, Berkeley, Selma, Vietnam, the Summer of Love, Black Power, the Chicago Convention, hippies, Brown Power, and Women's Liberation--The Movement--in an era that became known as The Sixties. Why did millions of Americans become activists; why did they take to the streets? These are questions Terry Anderson explores in The Movement and The Sixties, a searching history of the social activism that defined a generation of young Americans and that called into question the very nature of "America." Drawing on interviews, "underground" manuscripts collected at campuses and archives throughout the nation, and many popular accounts, Anderson begins with Greensboro and reveals how one event built upon another and exploded into the kaleidoscope of activism by the early 1970s. Civil rights, student power, and the crusade against the Vietnam War composed the first wave of the movement, and during and after the rip tides of 1968, the movement changed and expanded, flowing into new currents of counterculture, minority empowerment, and women's liberation. The parades of protesters, along with schocking events--from the Kennedy assassination to My Lai--encouraged other citizens to question their nation. Was America racist, imperialist, sexist? Unlike other books on this tumultuous decade, The Movement and The Sixties is neither a personal memoir, nor a treatise on New Left ideology, nor a chronicle of the so-called leaders of the movement. Instead, it is a national history, a compelling and fascinating account of a defining era that remains a significant part of our lives today.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent look at the 1960's.......2007-07-27
This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.
Terry H. Anderson did an exceptional job in his book delineating how a myriad of causes and movements got started and were conducted throughout the 1960's. Politically, the sixties were the most turbulent decade in America's history. Anderson took eight years to meticulously research and write a most informative book, explaining the chain of events that took place beginning in 1960 with a lunch counter sit-in at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ending with the end of the Vietnam War. This was not an easy task, considering many of the different movement organizations were not well organized, had no membership lists, and relied on small underground newspapers that were not published on a regularly scheduled basis. Anderson wisely noted that one can look back on the decade and glean from it much good for society that is still with us today; such as, the improvement in civil rights for minorities in America, and an awareness to improve the environment. One can also find social ills spawned by the decade that still plague American society today such as, the pernicious use of illegal drugs, and the sharp rise in teen-age pregnancy rates. Anderson took a different approach than most other historians who researched the sixties. He did not look at the decade from the standpoint of the leaders of the various movements, nor did he focus his attention on movement organizational history. Instead, Anderson's book is more of a national study of the sixties. In his approach, Anderson actually traced the chronological development of activism as it swept across the country, and how different movements allied with one another and/or became outgrowths of preceding struggles. In addition, he explained how activism spawned a completely new counter culture near the end of the decade. Thus, Anderson's book is an extremely useful social and political historical guide to the 1960's.
Anderson astutely traced how activism started with the struggle for civil rights that college students joined in the South. The sixties was also an age of television, and students were disgusted by the injustices and bloody violence against Blacks that they witnessed in news stories on television. Anderson noted that this was the catalyst that caused many White students to leave the safety of their college campuses, and travel down south on Freedom Rides to help Blacks fight the inequities of the Jim Crow laws. This activist desire to change America's status quo swept up both coasts, taking hold at elite universities where students created and joined liberal organizations. Once men started to go off to fight in Vietnam in 1965, activism started to change in two ways. First, besides just being involved in the civil rights struggle, activists took on the new cause of also demonstrating against the war. Secondly, activism spread to all the liberal cities across the country with large universities, including America's heartland. Although Anderson found that the New Left ideology came from many different influences, it was the ideas espoused in the Port Huron Statement, which typified many activists' dreams for how they wanted to transform American society.
In December of 1961, Robert Haber a University of Michigan student and president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), along with other members of a steering committee, understood that the organization needed a manifesto to express its political and social ideals. In June of 1962 at a campsite in Port Huron Michigan, 43 SDS members and a few other activists spent five days debating a draft manifesto written by Tom Hayden, a student at the University of Michigan and editor of its newspaper. What eventually emerged was the Port Huron Statement, which examined "American politics, economics, racism, and foreign policy; the nuclear issue; the role of students; communism; and the themes and values of SDS" (62). The first line in the statement embodied the reason why students in the sixties took to becoming activist. "We are people of this generation bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit." Anderson's research indicated that many activists believed the manifesto's significance was far reaching. The Port Huron Statement repudiated all the socio-economic and political values of the 1950's. It also proposed a new idealism that Hayden claimed was a bit to the left of the Democratic party for the sixties such as, advocating "social programs to fight poverty, establish national health care, help family farmers, and develop equal educational opportunities" (63). By the 1972 Democratic Party convention, many of the ideals of the Port Huron Statement found their way into the party platform. They were placed there by a plethora of minority delegates from various movement streams that had finally attained recognition in a major American political party. "Compared with 1968, the ratio of female delegates at the 1972 convention tripled to almost 40 percent, blacks tripled to 15 percent, and those under the age of 30 soared from 2 to over 20 percent" (397). They nominated the most liberal candidate in the party's, Senator George McGovern, who was soundly defeated by President Richard Nixon in the election.
In conclusion, although many movement activists took the loss of the 1972 election as a bitter defeat of their sixties idealism, Anderson astutely proved that activism did not die in 1972--it took a slower more peaceful pace. New activist movements, more recently termed "pressure groups," owe their birthright to the movements and activists of the sixties such as, Gray Power, a movement of senior citizens that was formed to advocate for their demands. The recent and intense focus on "global warming" is certainly an outgrowth of the sixties activists' concerns for the protection of the environment. Finally, Anderson's book showed that although various sixties movements such as the SDS, Hippies and Yippies may have disappeared, activism is a part of the lifeblood of both of America's political parties. Since the sixties, Americans have been more receptive to questioning socio-economic, political, and religious institutions.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, Civil Rights history.
Disappointing results from a brillant start.......2004-05-17
Anderson, takes on a monolith topic, and in doing so sheds much light on the agitation of race relations and the anti-war movement that swept the campuses of America in the Sixties. Unfortunately, he is depended all too often on establishment sources, and his interpretation of movement frenzy is something short of the realism we would expect from such a book. His attempt to span the pre-Kent State with post Kent State aftermath is unique and insightful though, and worth the effort for the benefit of this arguement alone.
Timothy Fitzgerald
Terrific Look At The Sixties Social Movement!.......2003-11-21
I stumbled upon this wonderful book as a used book at the local bookshop, and was delighted to discover just how complete and accurate a description it renders of the virtual kaleidoscope of activities associated with what came to be called 'the movement" in what was likely the most turbulent and tumultuous decade of the 20th century; the nineteen sixties. Professor Terry Anderson delivers a yeoman historian's look at the details of how what began as a fairly narrowly circumscribed civil rights effort on behalf of American blacks was transformed into a far-more comprehensive and sometimes all-inclusive broadside social and cultural critique of mainstream American society. In this book, "The Movement and the Sixties", Anderson breathes considerable life & pointed animation into a cautionary tale many of us actually lived through some forty years ago.
Anderson finds the origins of the so-called movement in the civil rights movement originating in the Greensboro sit-in protests in 1960. Through meticulous research and impressive documentation, he traces how the combination of moral outrage, youthful energy, and the rapid economic changes transforming American society itself combined to create an almost unstoppable cultural force, one that literally brought millions of citizens into the streets into social activism, and in the process transformed almost every aspect of contemporary society, from race relations to sexual equality, from student activism to the cultural view on the war in Vietnam. This is indeed a penetrating effort that succeeds in meaningfully exploring the nature of the social history of the sixties generation, who dared to question the very nature of and validity surrounding the American social system. Anderson shows how the initial efforts of the civil rights activists eventually blossomed into a garden variety of different protest activities, most profoundly, of course, in connection with the war in Vietnam.
In the fullness of time, the coalition of different communities in this widely-supported anti-war effort led to the further flowering of cultural criticism into many other areas of the contemporary culture, from minority rights to the counterculture, from gay rights to feminism. In the process, an impressive array of important aspects of our society came to be more closely examined, and were subsequently criticized and attacked, ranging from elements such as corporate polluters, who were then attacked by the environmental movement, to the behavior of organizations like the FBI and CIA, who were revealed later to have committed a wide range of transgressions against American citizens, most of whom had done nothing wrong and who the federal agencies had no legal right to either spy upon, nor to harass, nor to smear in the mass media, all of which was done. Anderson covers the history of the era with precision and a plethora of evidence regarding how the events and individuals depicted made the history of the times, and how profoundly they influenced how life in this country changed forever as a result. Enjoy!
Great Information. I did a project..........2001-06-03
In the 8th grade I did a project about the protests against the Vietnam war i nteh 1960's. THis book was my main reference. it has pictures, quotes, lines from songs, and all-over great information. I would reccomend this book to just about anyone who just felt like learning something new about the "flower child" era. (It was the best of times, it was the worst of times) this is a great book, and it was fun to read, in spite of it being for a grade. I really encourage you to read this book.
A great narrative history of the Sixties........2000-04-09
Anderson's book is a great narrative account of that most legendary of decades, the Sixties. He does a good job of identifying the various strands that made up Sixties culture, strands which are often lumped together by people today who have but a hazy notion of what really went on. The book is full of great anecdotes and supported by loads of primary sources. Read this book and check to see if this is how you remember it!
Book Description
This incisive and elegantly written examination of Chicano antiwar mobilization demonstrates how the pivotal experience of activism during the Viet Nam War era played itself out among Mexican Americans. ÁRaza Sí! ÁGuerra No! presents an engaging portrait of Chicano protest and patriotism. On a deeper level, the book considers larger themes of American nationalism and citizenship and the role of minorities in the military service, themes that remain pertinent today. Lorena Oropeza's exploration of the evolution, political trajectory, and eventual implosion of the Chicano campaign against the war in Viet Nam encompasses a fascinating meditation on Mexican Americans' political and cultural orientations, loyalties, and sense of status and place in American society.
Average customer rating:
- Grumpy Old Stoners
- So Much For the Golden Years
- Crunchy on the outside, soft at the core
- Taking a walk on the "wild"& unique side...
- Comic romp and frightening parable wrapped into one
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Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty
Tim Sandlin
Manufacturer: Riverhead Hardcover
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ASIN: 1594489335
Release Date: 2007-01-18 |
Book Description
It's 2023, and Guy Fontaine is an unwilling new resident at Mission Pescadero, an assisted-living facility outside San Francisco. It doesn't take him long to realize that his fellow residents have reverted to the lifestyles they embraced in the sixties, complete with sex, drugs, and rock and roll (with a little Viagra thrown in for good measure). The Mission Pescadero staff, and the world outside, would like nothing more than to forget these aging hippies, but the residents want-no, demand-to be treated with respect and dignity. And they'll fight for it. When one resident's prohibited cat is discovered by Mission Pescadero's domineering administrator, the resulting confrontation mushrooms into an epic battle between authority and anarchy, complete with twenty-four-hour media coverage and the involvement of California's governor, Drew Barrymore. As tensions escalate, Guy finds himself cast as an unlikely radical in a drama he doesn't understand.
By turns outrageous, hilarious, and, ultimately, touching, Tim Sandlin's new novel is a fascinating exploration of how the baby boomers are facing their own mortality. Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty is Sandlin at his iconoclastic best.
Customer Reviews:
Grumpy Old Stoners.......2007-08-14
As much as I would love to take credit for that descriptive title, I cannot. That is merely another gem from Tim Sandlin.
If you enjoy reading a well written, entertaining, laugh out loud funny book with a whole lot of heart then you are in luck because "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" will deliver on all counts.
So Much For the Golden Years.......2007-08-03
I must admit to being a big fan of Tim Sandlin, ever since "Sex and Sunsets" he has had my attention. This book is way to close to my age group and Tim is too young to know all the 60's music references. Scary as the prospect of my future in an "assisted living" facility may be, send me to this spot, I want to sit between the two Sunshines, I think I met one of them at the Fillmore at a Paul Butterfield Concert many years ago. Congrats to Tim, this hilarious book has a brutal honest side that is longer than Jerry Garcia's beard.
Crunchy on the outside, soft at the core.......2007-05-19
In this old-age romp, Sandlin turns his sharp satirical talents loose while doing that other thing that hilarious satirists can't always do -- empathy. Sandlin is able to both poke fun at sentimentality and yet he has a soft touch too; when these old peeps aren't expsoing their rear ends in mass-moonings, they expose their sadnesses, bewilderments, regrets, and disappointments at the lives behind and in front of them. The best part of JHT80 is the highly refreshing take on stereotypes of old age: the wisdom, feeblemindedness and bloody boringness with which old people are often relegated don't feature here. These old folks stick it to that portrayal and fling an adult diaper at anyone who ever says growing old means acting like it.
Taking a walk on the "wild"& unique side..........2007-04-02
All "baby boomers" should read this book. The references to the sixties and people and places of the time are nostalgic. The honesty about situations that the elderly of our generation are realistically written about. Alot of food for thought, I enjoy the authors writing style.
Comic romp and frightening parable wrapped into one.......2007-03-08
It's 2022, Jenna Bush is President, Gulf War VI is going on, and Gen Xers are warehousing their aging boomer parents in "assisted living" communities and taking control of their money under false pretenses.
Guy Fontaine, a retired sportswriter from Oklahoma, has moved in with his daughter, Claudia, in California after the death of beloved wife Lily. But when he has a senior moment--he hallucinates and drives a golf cart onto the freeway--he is locked up in Mission Pescadero, an assisted living community that encapsulates the frightening world Sandlin posits for our future. An evil administrator runs the place with all the humanity of the worst lunch lady in the boomers' past, peopling it with patients brought in on the flimsiest diagnoses of dementia, with residents going "through the tunnel" to the nursing wing on even flimsier diagnoses by her corrupt doctor/near lover, where they are drugged comatose and quiet.
The Mission's population is mainly leaders of the leftist movements of the Sixties, who have created a hierarchy based on when and what they did in the decade that you're only supposed to have been there if you've forgotten it. Guy, straight, drug-free and monogamous all his life, finds himself struggling to adjust with the proponents of free love and drug use in the golden years. But when the administrator discovers one patient has--shudder--a cat in his room, Guy is driven to violence to defend someone who had befriended him, setting off a revolt to liberate the Mission.
Sandlin carries this absurd yet realistic situation with aplomb, showing real understanding of the concerns and difficulties faced by old people, as well as the trends of society that, if left unchecked, could lead to a world like the one he imagines here. Even minor characters are given some depth and the good lines are dispersed amongst them. Guy's unconventional romance with Rocky is counterpointed by other love stories, from a lesbian encounter between one of the youngest residents and a yoga instructor to an alley cat of a man who doesn't realize he has terrible breath. Even the villains are given some back story and some sympathy. And all to the tunes of Jefferson Airplane and The Who.
My favorite character is a woman who comes out of a drug-induced coma to lead the revolution, barking orders in a remarkably cogent and prepared manner, which foreshadows revelations about her character that end up shocking the residents and prolonging their isolation. Full confession: I once met a woman who might have been a model for this character while doing work in a prison. Sandlin has the type down perfectly.
He also has the good sense to provide a bittersweet ending, reminding us that mortality and fragility occur even among the worthy.
Whether the book will become non-fiction, as Sandlin predicts, is really up to all of us.
Book Description
"A masterful combination of emerging theory and empirical comparison of one of the most intriguing areas of transnational politics. Keck and Sikkink access a broad range of theory from social movements, international relations, and comparative politics research to glean from a wealth of their own research findings solid and thought-provoking conclusions about the most interesting and least well-understood area of contentious politics in the world today."--Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University (Government)
"Activists beyond Borders is a searching exploration of advocacy networks, providing compelling accounts in areas such as human rights and environmental protection and an intriguing glimpse into the transnational politics of the twenty-first century."--Robert O. Keohane, Duke University
Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be international organizations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances include anti-slavery and woman suffrage campaigns. In the past two decades, transnational activism has had a significant impact in human rights, especially in Latin America, and advocacy networks have strongly influenced environmental politics as well. The authors also examine the emergence of an international campaign around violence against women.
Customer Reviews:
A voice beyond the mainstream IR theories.......2002-04-14
Who are the most relevant actors in international relations? The answer is states for both neorealists and neoliberals though the latter also consider some non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations (MNC) as remarkable units in international politics. Constructivists, on the other hand, pay considerable attention to non-state actors while they also keep states as central actors. Margaret E. Keck and, Kathryn Sikkink present us a well-designed discussion about the significance of non-state actors of world politics in Activist Beyond Borders. First of all, they classify transnational actors into three groups; MNC and international banks that have instrumental goals, epistemic communities that insist on causal ideas and transnational advocacy networks (TAN) that carry principal ideas.Then, they analyze the significance of TAN in international politics by searching for how do TAN work and how do they change conceptions of national interest and principles of policies organizations? Keck and Sikkink mention four fundamental strategies of TAN; information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, and accountability politics. They generate information, use symbolic elements, put pressure on states and international organizations, and follow their accountability to international norms. Their effectiveness, however, depend on the issue and actor characteristics that they are targeting. What they do? They cause to reformulation of national interests and they eventually change behavior of states. The principled ideas are the key for TAN and they also lead ideas to transformation of states interests and policies. Activist Beyond Borders has three case studies in the area of TAN; human rights, environment, and violence against women. In these cases, transnational human rights advocacy networks changed authoritarian Latin American governments' notions and policies of human rights. TAN in environment shifted the World Bank's funding policies in corresponding to the protection of environment. TAN in women's rights lead to change state policies in two areas. One of the most significant arguments for IR theory that Keck and Sikkink state is that TAN lead to changes in state understandings of sovereignty. Then states begin to accommodate to re-conceptualized sovereignty at the expense of realist notion of absolute sovereignty. In this sense, they question the realist premises of state interests. They also emphasizes that TAN are important source of new ideas, norms and identities that make repercussions over behavior of states and international organizations. They carry transformative and mobilizing ideas into international system and finally shape fundamentally policies of both state and non-sate actors in world politics. In addition, the authors stress upon the importance of domestic actors for TAN to be successful. Overall, Activists Beyond Borders asserts that TAN endeavor to transform the terms and nature of the debate on fundamentals of international politics.
Destined to become a classic.......2001-10-10
Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikink's "Activists Beyond Borders" is almost certainly the most significant book yet to have appeared on the role of activist networks in shaping global politics. It's a joy to read, theoretically rich but never overly dense, and it's also inspiring -- probably why it received the prestigious Grawemeyer World Order Award. The introduction, on "Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics," would make an excellent reading for a graduate course on International Relations theory. But the same could be said for almost every chapter in the book. The case-studies build upon the prior research of both authors to present fascinating overviews of the evolution of activist networks in the fields of human rights, the environment, and violence against women. In each instance, the authors are careful to include examples of networks that did *not* crystallize in certain issue-areas, and to explain why some endeavours succeeded while others failed (or were less successful). While the book will be of considerable interest to I.R. scholars, it should also be read by activists, who will learn a great deal about how to maximize their reach and influence.
A good introduction to international politics.......2001-03-24
This book provides an excellent introduction to the world of international politics. It has several very detailed chapters exploring such issues as timber logging, for example, and then goes into detail describing how various groups influence the industry.
The focus of their book is how "advocacy networks", as opposed to the traditional government agencies, effect change. These advocacy networks work alongside and often against governments in often non-traditional methods to achieve a desired result. In the case of timber harvesting, for example, advocacy networks were unsuccessful in persuading governments to alter their poicies so the organizations within that network focused on the consumers of timber. They successfully exposed the objectionable timber harvesting practices of various companies and enabled consumers to exert pressure on timber harvesting companies to change their practices.
Book Description
Naomi Klein’s No Logo is an international bestselling phenomenon. Winner of Le Prix Mediations (France), and of the National Business Book Award (Canada) it has been translated into 21 languages and published in 25 countries.
Named one of Ms Magazine’s Women of Year in 2001, and declared by the Times (London) to be “probably the most influential person under the age of 35 in the world,” in Fences and Windows, Naomi Klein offers a bird’s-eye view of the life of an activist and the development of the “anti-globalization” movement from the Seattle World Trade Organization protests in 1999 through September 11, 2001. Bringing together columns, speeches, essays, and reportage, Klein once again provides provocative arguments on a broad range of issues. Whether she is discussing the privatization of water; genetically modified food; “free trade;” or the development of the movement itself and its future post 9/11, Naomi Klein is one of the most thoughtful and brilliant activists and thinkers for a new generation.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting but scattered read.......2005-02-24
Fences and Windows is an interesting read but much of its content seems both reactionary and propagandic. There is little coverage of the actual 'meat' to the issue of globalization. Instead this book gives the reader little snippets of information (ie: Some really interesting protester was arrested) which lack much intellectual value. Overall, the book is an interesting read but provides little additional information to the globalization discourse.
A depressing read.......2004-12-09
I thought that No Logo had reached the bottom of the pit as far as the literature on anti-globalization goes but here we go again.
Naomi Klein does write her dispatches from a perceived front-line. She strikes out against the very things that are making the world more open, such as tearing down regulation, allowing people to move around and opening markets (putting her in the same camp as neo Nazis and other nationalists whom she is against) but most seriously, her arguments ring flat and one is left wondering what the anti-globalization movement stands for. Even the things for which it is against seem inconsistent.
As one of the apostles of the anti-globalization movement, Klein is a poor one. She does not see the irony of Zapatista t-shirts, baseball hats and ski-masks. She does not find strange the fact that Marcos, who leads the Zapatistas and with whom she seems infatuated happens to have his greatest following among middle-aged women.
She fails to convince the reader that the anti-globalization movement is anything but some hazy new-age mixing of anarchists and doped up teenagers that haven't showered in a week. What sense can one make out of her arguments that the movement is waiting for "something entirely unprecedented"? Are we to wait for Godot?
I have had the misfortune to have read her articles in the Guardian in the UK and like a bad dream; I am hoping that she fades away harmlessly. But with the rise of protectionism around the world, which will hurt the poor world the most, the Naomi Kleins of the world are, unfortunately, the ones, who through their ill conceived logic and weirdness, will shape the thinking of the public.
Reading this book gives one an insight into the anti-everything movement but one does not come out the wiser as to what they really want.
Another eye-opener.......2004-06-15
I was not initially sold (no pun intended!) on Klein's earlier No Logo. I found it repetitive and lacking a clear literary style. Obviously I was pretty much alone in that as the book inspired a generation of young anti-Corporate activists. And rightly so. Klein returns with a collection of articles about the time after No Logo. I found these very moving and concise snapshots of the globalization movement and the need to regain a perspective on the role of multi-nationals in our lives. Now a respected voice on the world stage, Klein finally gets down to writing the book I wanted to read first time around. Not as cleverly titled though :-)
Involving if not surprising.......2004-06-07
The thing about a book by Klein is you are either a real fan or you aren't - there really isn't a middle point. Most people who have encountered Klein before would have read `No Logo' and this book is very much in the same vein, with commentary on, or more specifically against, the perceived rise of a capitalist corporatist culture, driven by a consumerist West which is disadvantaging the rest of the world. This book is a collection of articles and speeches by Klein about issues regarding international regimes, the good and bad sides of globalisation, and the resistance movements that seem to now be a prerequisite for any meeting of economic importance. A good non-scholarly take on one facet of the many-sided debate on globalism and its effects.
Opens a Window.......2004-05-17
This book is not "No Logo". It will not be the Bible of any movement, however it is a good source of information about events that are happening in the stuggle against globalization and neo-liberalisms. The media has a bias and Naomi is the one who gives us the truth behind the events. She gives us understanding into the police crackdown and the politicians desire to stifle freedom of expression.
As it is a collection of articles it's a book that can be picked up and read at any point. The articles are compelling and will help you to see a truth that's not given in the mainstream.
Average customer rating:
- Wonderful Read
- Untold tedium
- Disappointing.
- Saturday
- Remarkable writer, but...
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Saturday
Ian McEwan
Manufacturer: Nan A. Talese
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0385511809
Release Date: 2005-03-22 |
Book Description
From the pen of a master — the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of
Atonement — comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Saturday is a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before.
On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne’s day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne’s professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him — with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive.
Download Description
Ian McEwan is the author of nine novels, including
Amsterdam, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998, and of
Atonement, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the WHSmith Literary Award.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Read.......2007-09-17
Unlike the last two reviewers, I thought this book was a wonderful read. I enjoyed being in Henry Perowne's head for a day. I thought the author's prose was beautiful and I appreciated the pulls on Henry -- similar to those many of us face: career, children, parents, in-laws; friends; political uncertainty in the face of others who seem so certain. I liked the way he showed a brain used to science & reason trying to cope with the emotional unscientific world. I recommend this book if you like to read & think when you read.
Untold tedium.......2007-09-07
The success of and widespread praise for this book amazes me. Sure, the author writes in good English, but this is a very very forgettable book. It it one of the very few books I gave up reading. After about 200 pages I decided to skip ahead, check out the amazingly unsatisfactory and implausible ending, and finally get rid of the book. I regret the sad day when I spent seventeen bucks at an airport to purchase it. The story could have been interesting, even if certainly not very original: how the life of a successful and happy person/family can be threatened by an easily avoidable random event. But to develop the story McEwan decides to dive into amazingly boring conversations and thoughts about brain surgery, squash, music, poetry and what have you, maybe just to show us that he had done his homework before writing the book? Not to mention the sadly sadly superficial and tedious arguments pro and against the Iraq war. The kind of discussions that you could easily overhear by mistake on your way to work on the subway, or that you can read in an op-ed of a second-rate newspaper. I found this book not entertaining, not interesting, not witty or otherwise particularly well written. Writing this review has been the most satisfactory activity of mine I can think of related to this book. I thought "Atonement" was somewhat similarly mediocre, until the ending which made up for much of the disappointment that came from reading the first 9 tenths of the book. But in "Saturday" the ending is just the tombstone of a book which won't find a place on my bookshelves. Very NOT recommended, and very likely to be the last of McEwan books' I purchase or read.
Disappointing........2007-08-30
If you like good clean characters whose greatest sins involve caring to much, maybe you will like this book. As always, I love McEwan's ability to take us through the intellectual ruminations of his characters, there was some truly interesting writing about the brain and medicine, but it was surrounded by a thin storyline with characters who were so "good" they were snooze-worthy.
The villain, who at first truly is a succesful menacing force, by the end seems like yet another angel who just had the bad luck of bad genes. Puh..lease! I know genetics ain't always fair, but does that mean that most immoral behavior is as simple as having a brain disorder? If it is, then why write about it? Also, what was with the "Dover Beach" saves the day poem at the end. There is more complexity and play of light and dark in the Patridge Family than in this clan of sterile brits.
So far "Atonement" seems like both McEwan's crowning achievement and his only book worth reading. I will probably continue to forage on, However, because "Atonement" was so good.
Saturday.......2007-08-28
This is the most introspective of McEwan's novels. It's a 24-hour period in the life of neurosurgeon Henry Perowne. What sets out to be a sleepy Saturday full of errands (a squash game, a trip to the grocer, a visit with his mother) turns into the inner dialogue of a man coping with unsettling turns of events.
This is definitely a post-Nine Eleven narrative, comprised of Henry's thoughts about the political climate and observations of the anti-war rallies taking place. Other underlying themes include music and poetry. Henry's drunken father-in-law is the inspiration for Henry's adult children, his daughter a published poet, and his son an accomplished blues musician. As the events of the day unfold, so does the tension (reminiscent of Enduring Love) and complexity of the characters.
McEwan did his research in the neurosurgery field. Henry often recollects his previous surgeries and training. He also reflects on his relationship with his wife, his place in the world, and his admiration for his children, which deepens the relationship of the reader and Henry. A well-written story that kept me questioning, "How would I have handled that situation if I were in Henry's position?"
Remarkable writer, but..........2007-08-25
I liked Atonement better.
The book fails to develop a recognizable conflict until about 100 pages from the end. The principle character is involved in an intense incident about a quarter of the way into the book, but then it is gone and there is nothing to "hook" the reader until the end.
Ian is one of the finest modern writers I have read. I am amazed by writers with this kind of skill. Every block of text is a marvel in eloquence. However, I require a bit more conflict. Too many kids, job is demanding: I read late at night.
Read Atonement first. If you like it, read this. I am going to give Amsterdam a try now.
Book Description
The study of two demagogues, whose vast popularity explains much about Depression-era America.
Customer Reviews:
A Fair Assessment of Controversial Figures.......2007-07-24
One of the things I've found in reading American history, and especially in books written about the era of the Great Depression, is that President Roosevelt had the greatest smear operation in American History. This operation has carried on to this day, 60+ years after his death. The "establishment" historians are merely foot maidens of the Roosevelt reputation, burnishing the legend of his greatness, overlooking his ineffectiveness both in dealing with the depression and the war, and smearing anyone who ever dared to question the legacy of this supposedly greatest of 20th century Americans. It is an operation that the Kims of North Korea could surely envy.
Two cases in point are Father Coughlin and Huey Long. Another is Charles Lindbergh. These men had the gaul, in their day, to oppose Roosevelt. Thus they have come down to us in our day as Fascists, anti-semites, Nazi sympathizers and Little Hitlers. None of these men was flawless. As a matter of fact, each had grievous faults. Long was a corrupt politician. Coughlin was a brilliant speaker who fell prey to his own over-emotionalism and then easily into rancor, both in politics and with his brethren in the church and who then stooped to the bitter personal attacks and bigotry that cost him the respect of general audiences. Lindbergh was naive and often filled with bloated self-importance; he was short sighted and illogical in many of his views and inarticulate in expressing them. Yet each in their time raised legitimate concerns with the policies of Roosevelt and, I think, were more or less sincere in their protests against the direction FDR was taking this country.
Personally, I think the ideas of Long, Coughlin and Lindbergh were purely crack-pot and founded on ignorance of basic economics and politics. Proof of this is the continued popularity of their ideas (maybe under a different name and guise) among the kooks of the modern lunatic fringe like, say, the Larouchites. These ideas would have been disastrous to the country had they been followed. Yet this is supposed to be a free country where political dissent is allowed; but because Coughlin, Long and Lindbergh dared to question the motives and actions of the idol of the American left, they have been eternally smeared through our history. Looking at this result, I would be moved to ask who were the real fascists: the Coughlins, Longs and Lindberghs; or FDR and his brain trust, and the lap dogs, both in the media of the day, and in the history books since, who have smeared and mischaracterized his opponents and who attempted to use the powers of government to intimidate them into silence.
Which makes this book different and admirable. The author reports on Long and Coughlin with all their warts and doesn't try to conceal any of their weaknesses; however, he is fair to them. He doesn't try to make every disagreement with FDR into evidence of Fascism. He connects the Long & Coughlin programs to legitimate public grievances and shows how wide spread among the public were the feelings that Long & Coughlin expressed. The book is not overly long, yet it is meticulously researched. And though I think, from reading it, that the author is an FDR admirer (just a feeling--I don't really know), he allows FDR's opponents the benefit of the doubt in the sincerity of their opposition.
My own opinion is that Long & Coughlin (especially Coughlin) underestimated the popular power of the presidency. I believe the people, in general, WANT to like the president, whoever he is. We see now, even with a president as unpopular as Bush, how hard it is to balk him, and how easily he has thwarted his congressional opponents in their efforts to reverse his policies. He retains, even in his lowest days, strong support from about 1/3rd of the population, and this is usually enough to maintain a hold on the direction of national policy.
We saw how Clinton held on to enough support, through all his sordid scandals, to frustrate his foes; how long LBJ held a blank check despite his mismanagement of Viet Nam, only losing grip at the very end; and even how such a boob as Carter retains a good measure of public popularity, even after his miserable performance as president and his almost 30 years of asinine behavior after leaving the White House.
FDR was completely ineffective in dealing with the depression. Every one of his programs, and every effort of the New Deal were failures. His value was mainly as a propagandist and cheerleader. He made the people feel better and they loved him and supported him for his good cheer and they elected him four times. He was a brilliant publicist and public speaker. His radio addresses were models of simplifying complicated issues without sereming to speak down to his audience. This was enough to cloud, in the mind of his listeners, the effectiveness (or, rather, ineffectiveness) of his administration.
The popularity of a Coughlin was transient and that of Long was more or less local (though it would have been interesting to see, had he lived, how far he could have gone in challenging FDR following the economic reversals of 1938, then what his stance would have been in the war debates of 1939-40, and if he could have made greater national inroads at this time).
A nation of people elect a president. They vote for him. To repudiate him, to turn against him, means admitting a mistake in electing him. Hence they cling to him long after he has proven a failure, an incompetent or a devious scoundrel. FDR was all of these, but neither Coughlin or Long could erode the people's faith in him because the people want to love their president and to hold on to the idea that their votes for him showed sagacity and wisdom.
Dissident Movements in America - fascinating topic.......2006-07-29
Praise has been heaped on Alan Brinkley's book in the past, and after reading it, I fully concur with the accolades that past reviewers have granted to this book.
Brinkley sets the tone for his book from the title - "Voices of Protest". He focuses the book on the two main characters (and I do mean characters) present in the subtitle - Huey P. Long and Father Charles E. Couglin.
Brinkley treats us to a brief biographical sketch of each of these flamboyant and ebulent personalities. Long in his silk pajamas receiving a German envoy, and Coughlin stripping down from his clerical garb to a sweat soaked politician are just a couple of the many images that grab the reader during the progression of this discourse.
After explaining who these men were, he goes into their social & political movements - a fascinating tale of Long's "Share Our Wealth" plan, and an equally rich telling of Coughlin's "Golden Hour of the Little Flower". Brinkley has chosen the title Voices of Protest because both of these movements became major political dissident movements in Depression-era America.
Brinkley does a fantastic job of explaining, in historiographic terms, why these movements gathered such steam and were able to become massive social movements rather than just political fodder. In addition to detailing these two major oppositional voices to FDR's new deal, Brinkley also gives us a chapter on other movements that were equally critical of the New Deal, but not nearly as widespread.
I found it especially interesting how Brinkley explained that Long was the primary reason why both of these movements flourished - after his assassination in 1935, both movements really seemed to fall apart.
I enjoyed this book tremendously - it gives new insight into the way that political dissonance took hold in the 1930's and what a big part of American society these two political movements became.
The Follies of Charismatic Leadership.......2006-01-19
On the eve of the Great Depression the great Spanish existential and political philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset published The Revolt of the Masses. In it he predicted the rise of mass man -- undifferentiated, unanchored and unthinking citizens of modern, western societies attached to none of the traditional sources of community, which were being destroyed by capitalism anyway. For Ortega y Gasset, these folks all too easily moved to charismatic, emotional leadership to give meaning in their political lives. Twentieth century thinkers like Dwight MacDonald and Hannah Arendt have explored some of the implications of Ortega y Gasset's work, noting its eerie forershadowing of Nazism, Fascism and Stalinism. American historians such as Richard Hofstadter, meatime, found in American radicalism the same linkages between charismatic leadership and mass man. In Hofstadter's telling this phenomenon folded within the tradition of radical critiques of American capitalism.
Hofstadter's works, most notably The Age of Reform, were pretty critical of the causes of the American attraction to radical politics, such as it was -- that attraction was fostered by emotional anxieties that all too often morphed into nostalgic, irresponsible, politically conservative, anti-Semitic, racist movements.
Alan Brinkley clearly relies of Hofstadter quite a bit, but with a much more sympathetic treatment of American mass politics and its causes. For him, the anxieties were fully justified. He focuses on the alternative visions offered by Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s to President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Brinkley argues both men attracted large followings accross the nation by the use of the radio and mass-circulation print publications. By 1935 their combined popularity was enough to scared the hell out of the Democratic Party and President Roosevelt, with the result that FDR pushed through the Second New Deal in the run-up to his 1936 re-election effort. Brinkley argues that Long and Coughlin emphasized redistribution of wealth and economic justice for the common man/consumer, not the New Deal concern with "stabilizing business" and "restoring business confidence." In a sense we have these two rabble-rousers to thank for Roosevelt's turn to the left in 1935 in the form of specific public policies such as the Social Security Act (which Long opposed for some technical federalist reasons, actually).
As part of his argument, then, Brinkley streses the positive, substantive aspects of Long's and Coughlin's message over the psychological anxieties stressed by Hofstadter and his scholarly followers. In what is probably the best chapter in Voices of Protest, "The Dissident Ideology," Brinkley connects the Long/Coughlin program with the anti-modern, anti-urban, anti-capitalistic radical political tradition informing American protest politics, from Thomas Jefferson to Orestes Brownsen to William Jennings Bryan.
Long's Share Our Wealth scheme of income redistribution thus, in Brinkley's telling, represented a geniune, substantive response to the economic hardships of the 1930s and their root cause -- not enough consumer power!
This is good as far as it goes I suppose. But Brinkley certainly could have emphasized more the rank irresponsibility of Long and Coughlin -- they must have known, for example, that simplistic schemes such as Share Our Wealth had zip chance of success. Even if they could succeed in the abstract, they could never be implemented logistically as Brinkley notes in passing. As Voices of Protest makes clear, Coughlin and Long -- despite, or perhaps because of, their manic energies -- had no patience or desire to construct meaningful, sophisticated, sustained politices to help their constituiencies. Long, for example, had no interest in Senate business for most of his term in that august body, no desire to manipulate the institution (a la LBJ for example) and form effective coalitions to bring about meaningful change.
This is a beautifully written, beautifully constructed narrative. Brinkley is a fine heir to popular/scholarly narrative/analytical history in the tradition of Commager, Nevins and Schlesinger. Voices of Protest covers alot of ground already well plowed by masters such as T. Harry Williams in his biography of Long. But Brinkley adds alot more archival sources and fascinating letters from the common people -- mass men -- who Long/Coughlin attracted. But for reformers looking for historical models on which to base effective, modern, sophisticated methods for political and economic change, they'll have to look elsewhere than the examples of Charles Coughlin and Huey Long. I don't think Brinkley emphasizes that quite enough and himself falls for their charismatic qualities -- a serious shortcoming in an otherwise fine book
an impressive piece of history..........2005-06-22
I marvel at the depth and range written in Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley. Without very much firsthand information from Huey Long and Charles Coughlin, Alan Brinkley was able to portray the lives of these two unlikely figureheads of the Great Depression. From their small town beginnings to their national prominence to their movement's downfalls, Huey Long's and Father Coughlin's stories are on display for the history buff or even the average reader.
The first three chapters are devoted to the rise of Huey Long. Starting in Louisiana, he gets his first opportunity to shine in the public limelight as a railroad comissioner. His grass roots campaigning and fight for the lower classes changed the landscape of Louisiana politics from a state voting along religious lines to one voting along economic lines. As governor and a senator of Louisiana, Huey Long continuously fought for the redistribution of wealth and the rights of the local institutions. Rising to national prominence after his campaigning for Hattie Caraway who was the first woman to be elected to a full term in the Senate, Long used his newfound popularity to influence American politics during the Great Depression like no other except for one (Coughlin of course). From his influence on the Presidential Election of 1932 to his Share Our Wealth Plan, Voices of Protest contains all of the information one would want to know about Huey Long's rise and sudden fall after he was assassinated.
After Alan Brinkley discusses Huey Long's rise, he delves into the rise of Father Charles Coughlin. Surrounded by Catholicism from a very young age, Charles Coughlin was destined to become a priest. After getting through seminary, he finally received a new parish in Royal Oaks, a suburb of Detroit. Coughlin was always thought of as a great orator, but even that wasn't enough to pay for the increasing debt incurred by the new parrish. To make money for the church, Coughlin went to the local radio station to use his special talents as an orator. His radio sermons were soon heard across the nation. His influence with the radio was tremendous, causing him to begin a series of politically based chats (starting with his dislike of communism) that would throw him into the political arena as a man of influencial capabilities. Coughlin's tumultuous relationship with Franklin Roosevelt and his National Union for Social Justice are a couple more of the many topics discussed in this section of Vioces of Protest.
Alan Brinkley then moves on to discuss the similarities of Huey Long's and Charles Coughlin's movements, along with their relation to other movements (Socialist, Progressive, Communist) of the time and the political forces that they each, in their own right, become. Alan Brinkley also touches on each of their efforts towards organization in their respective parties and discusses in depth the followers of each's movements, including some alliances that were created solely for Long's and Coughlin's advancement politically or for others advancement. Finally, Alan Brinkley brings Huey Long's and Charles Coughlin's stories to an end with their eventual downfall and also elucidates on the aftermath of those downfalls.
There are two main quotes I would like to share here that I enjoyed as I read Voices of Protest. The first is on page 216 when Alan Brinkley discusses the uneasy alliances, and it is as follows: "Were these many protest movements to unite into a single force, they might be capable of toppling the entire structure of traditional party politics." The second is on page 243 when Brinkley discusses the downfalls of Long and Coughlin, and it is as follows: "Far more troubling for the crusades Long and Coughlin were preparing was a single, debilitating weakness: inability to wean their followers from Franklin Roosevelt." Both of these quotes represent hom much political power Long and Coughlin could have had and how much political power Franklin Roosevelt actually had. It is impressive to think about and enjoyable to read about, so I would highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. Everyone enjoy!
Fascinating look at dissident America, circa 1930s.......2004-01-14
In many ways the Great Depression marked a turning point for American society. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies significantly altered the scope and function of the federal government through a host of social programs engineered to revive the ailing economy. A restructuring of the banking system, restrictions on the stock markets, an increase in the size of the bureaucracy, and the development of Social Security were just a few of the changes wrought by the administration. Despite the various panaceas proposed and enacted by Roosevelt's government, the economic slump doggedly persisted year after year until World War II provided jobs for millions of out of work Americans. Roosevelt and his advisors were not the only people trying to cure the country of its economic ills, however. During the early and mid 1930s, several dissident social movements exploded onto the American scene promising an end to the Depression. Historian Alan Brinkley examines two of the biggest of these movements in "Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression."
The first 142 pages of "Voices of Protest" summarizes the life, rise, and various activities of Louisiana politician Huey Long and Catholic priest and radio personality Charles Coughlin. If you know a great deal about these two fascinating figures, you could probably skip these sections and not miss out on a great deal. Brinkley discusses Long's early life in Winn Parish, a Louisiana county with a long history of radical dissent dating back to the era of Populism. Arguing that this background imbued Long with a fondness for the common man, Brinkley outlines Huey's rise to power through the governorship of Louisiana and his eventual move into the United States Senate. Long was a corrupt politician who ran his state like a personal fiefdom, even after he went to Washington. Huey's political machine controlled every government job in the state, from the highest to lowest positions, and the man made ample use of this power to pack the state government with allies who would do his bidding. By the time the Senator proposed his "Share Our Wealth" palliative, he had an eager eye on the presidency. Long's plans for the country died with him when an assassin's bullet felled the Senator in the Louisiana Statehouse in 1935.
Charles Coughlin grew up in Canada and eventually joined the priesthood, moving to Royal Oak, Michigan in the 1920s. When his new church needed to raise funds to pay off a diocesan loan, he started a small radio program on WJR in Detroit. At first, the program consisted of short, harmless sermons. With the start of the Depression, Coughlin's broadcasts swiftly assumed political dimensions. His voice, described by many as one of the most arresting sounds ever heard on the airwaves, rapidly increased the size of his audience. As the donations poured in Coughlin expanded his radio network into a virtual empire. By the mid 1930s he was one of the most prominent figures in American society, a man looked up to by millions and a frequent guest at the Roosevelt White House. The priest and the president soon fell out over several issues, and Coughlin took his revenge on Roosevelt by forming the National Union for Social Justice and its attendant political branch, the Union Party, to unseat the president in the 1936 elections. The priest failed, and in a sign of decreasing popularity and bitterness he wholeheartedly embraced anti-Semitism and pro-German sympathies before the Catholic Church forced his retirement from public life in the early 1940s. Coughlin died in obscurity in 1979.
"Voices of Protest" takes off with chapter seven. Brinkley adroitly and convincingly analyzes the Long and Coughlin movements, explaining how the two men amassed such huge audiences with their populist rhetoric. The Depression, argues Brinkley, exposed the inherent flaws in a fundamental economic/social shift that had been going on in America for decades. The centralization and bureaucratization of business and government threatened traditional American ideas about the importance of localized society. When a stock market disaster in New York City caused workers in Lincoln, Nebraska or Des Moines, Iowa to lose their jobs, people worried anew about big business and power held in the hands of an anonymous few thousands of miles away. Long and Coughlin played on these fears by proposing programs that would restore power to local communities and the individual. Their programs ultimately failed because the economic move to centralization had already gone on for far too long. Additionally, the two men's ideas contained seeds of contradiction. In an effort to restore a traditional life highlighting locality and the individual, Long and Coughlin proposed big government schemes as a means of achieving their goals. The attempt to turn Share Our Wealth and the National Union for Social Justice into nationwide political organizations failed because of this focus on localization and an inability on the part of the two men to address the core issue of the problems they attacked, namely economic centralization.
The rest of "Voices of Protest" looks closely at the organization and followers of the Long and Coughlin organizations, other dissidents operating in the 1930s, and whether Long and Coughlin were American fascists. There are a few problems with the book. I think the author fails to strongly stress the positive aspects of these movements. For example, Brinkley barely mentions that these movements brought millions of Americans into the political life of the country at a time when participation was enormously important. Moreover, the dissident movements in the United States undoubtedly pushed Roosevelt to create important pieces of legislation during his second term as president. Social Security, for example, was an attempt to co-opt Francis Townsend's old age pension plan. Still, "Voices of Protest" is a winner that every person interested in 20th century American history should read.
Amazon.com
The 1976 Argentine junta that overthrew the ragged Peronista government launched a campaign of terror to crush dissent. "Ford Falcons without license plates would slide through the streets like sharks," says one witness, remembering nights when security forces "disappeared" hordes of people. Though many were tortured and executed in detention centers, junta leaders denied any knowledge of this. Determined to learn the fates of their sons and daughters, a group of middle-aged women who called themselves Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo braved beatings, threats, and abductions to spotlight the flagrant violations of human rights. This scholarly, somewhat dry book tells of their radicalization and activism, which helped galvanize world pressure against the junta and slow the tide of disappearances. Though stiff writing sometimes undermines their affecting, painful stories, this is an amazing and rewarding blueprint for cooperative struggle against abuses of power.
Book Description
Revolutionizing Motherhood examines one of the most astonishing human rights movements of recent years. During the Argentine junta's Dirty War against subversives, as tens of thousands were abducted, tortured, and disappeared, a group of women forge
Customer Reviews:
life changing.......2004-11-29
I was directed to read this for a class. I had no idea that it would cause me to change my way of thinking. We all know that the atrocities of disappearances exist, and we might even place a bit of distance between ourselves and the subjects of this book so we can feel better about our own place in life. However, getting close to this subject brings an awareness and sense that something needs to be done, not donation of money, or thinking about it every now and then, (although these actions help) but everyday we need to be doing something. What the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo did was revolutionary. What they did, and how they went about organizing, spreading the word and surviving as they did in the roles that they were as mothers unfamiliar with is astounding. We can learn alot from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. I hope that everyone who has been politically disheartened or disenfranchised reads this book! I believe the other review on this book may have articulated the response to it more thoroughly; nonetheless, I hope to get across that this is a must-read for those interested in social justice issues, activism and more.
A New Argentine Mother.......2000-04-01
This is an academic look at the organization of middle-aged Argentine mothers that began in the wake of widespread political and state sponsored terrorism in the period of 1976-1982, more commonly called the Dirty War. It began as a network of mothers who met while trying in vain to search for their children who had been `disappeared' by the government and grew into an internationally recognized and admired group committed to changing the structure of the Argentine political system from the bottom up. This book focuses on the journey of these women from traditional housewives, many with no formal education, confined to the private sphere of home and family, to a highly politicized, ever present and very out spoken activist organization. They have taken the traditional role of `mother' and used it to their advantage to bring to light the atrocities committed by the military junta against their children. As the title suggests, their organization has revolutionized the concept of motherhood by taking the concerns and duties of mothers out of the private sphere into the public and even international political arena. This book is an interesting documentation of the group and includes interviews with many members as well as commentary from many Argentine and international publications about the Mothers. It discusses their activities from the group's conception during the Dirty War through the transition to democracy as well as their continuing struggle in Argentine political life today. The book also documents the enormous obstacles they faced and continue to face economically, socially, and within their own families as well as their political struggles. It also talks about their interaction and reception in the international sphere, as they captured the attention of human rights and women's organizations from all over the world. It even discusses the ideological split among the Mothers after the return to democracy in 1982 that caused some Mothers to break away from the original group to form another group of Mothers with slightly different ideologies. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the focus on the development of the women themselves. A great deal of time is devoted to the transformation that has taken place among these women as they came together to find solace in each other that only someone experiencing the purgatory of not knowing the fate of their children could offer. It documents the courage, dedication, successes and disappointments of a group of women who came together to help each other look for answers. It is detailed documentation of a very personal and painful journey of political awakening through collective struggle and pain. It is one of the most valuable and moving aspects of this book. By focusing on this personal transformation, one begins to understand the almost incomprehensible corruption and brutality of the government. For these women, protesting meant standing in the face all traditional social, religious and cultural roles for women, especially middle-aged women. By the end of the book, one can't help but share in their frustrations and pain as they continue to fight for the integrity of the family and the supreme sanctity of human life. It is ironic that it was precisely because they were quintessential Argentine mothers that they became political activists that began to transform the concept of motherhood and the role of women in Argentine society. The abduction of their children was not only a painful, emotional loss, but also a direct assault on the institution of the family. It is interesting to note that throughout the book they emphasize their occupation, as a mother, has remained intact. However, the activities involved with being a mother have changed. To them, now to be a mother also meant fighting for the rights of their children, left voiceless by the government and carrying on their children's work and memory in their absence. This book is an excellent source of information about the Mothers themselves as well as about the atmosphere of Argentina as a whole during this time. It has many pictures of the mothers from the past and present and mixes academic fact easily with first person accounts, quotes and interview. It equally discusses successes and mistakes of the group, as well as various controversies that have surrounded the group's history. It's content and style make it an emotional and informative book.
Book Description
The H Block protest is one of the strangest and most controversial issues in the tragic history of Northern Ireland. Republican prisoners, convicted of grave crimes through special courts and ruthless interrogation procedures, campaigned for political status by refusing to wear prison clothes and daubing their cell with excrement.Were they properly convicted criminals, or martyrs to political injustice? In a masterpiece of investigative journalism, Coogan provides us with the only first-hand account of the protest. His investigation led deep into the social, cultural, and economic maze of Northern Ireland's history to give readers an unmatched analysis of a troubled place and its sorrowful history.
Customer Reviews:
STANDING UP FOR WHAT YOU BELEVE IN.......2002-12-26
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE DIRTY PROTEST BY THE IRA PRISONERS IN H BLOCK OF THE MAZE PRISON ONE OF THE PRISONERS WAS BOBBY SANDS. WHETEHER YOU AGREE WITH THE IRA OR NOT IT IS A TRAGIC INCIDENT AND SHOWS THE WILL AND DRIVE OF THESE 10 MEN AND ALL THERE SUPPORTERS AND THERE STANDING FOR THE THINGS THEY TRULY BELIEVE IN ESPECIAALY IN SUCH DEPLORABLE CONDITIONS. SOME BOOKS ABOUT THE TROUBLES ARE A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO GET THROUGH BUT THIS WAS A PRETTY GOOD BOOK
Unflinching Journal of the IRA's "Dirty Protest".......2002-11-19
Published just prior to the hunger strikes of 1981 which claimed the life of ten IRA prisoners, "On The Blanket" details the so-called "dirty protest" that led up to the horrors of that year. With several first-hand accounts from prisoners and actors in the struggle, Coogan presents an unflinching account of the events in Long Kesh (the Maze) and Armagh prisons. The descriptions of the conditions in both prisons will move even the most cold-hearted reader. Coogan puts forth an important work that will stand as testiment to this troubled period in Irish history.
Books:
- Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
- Bring Me That Horizon: (Welcome Book)
- Brother Odd (Odd Thomas Novels)
- Buddha, Volume 8: Jetavana (Buddha)
- Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham
- Chicken Soup For The Horse Lover's Soul: Inspirational Stories About Horses and the People Who Love Them (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Paperback Health Communications))
- Dead Giveaway (Stillwater Trilogy)
- Deliberate Discretion?: The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
- Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? (Second Edition)
- Dream Weaver
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